How much should a kitty be and how does it work?

[MrsAJH]

We have just found a lovely lady to be our first ever Nanny - one child who will be 9 months when she starts in March. I'm just sorting out the contract and thinking through the practicalities of things and wondered about a kitty.

Should we just leave a weekly cash amount to cover the cost of things? How much should it be? Is it just spent or is there any indication on what? Should it include petrol or do we ensure that the car is always full after the weekend?

Any advice for newbie nanny employers would be much appreciated - on this or anything else you think we should be mindful of. We have used an agency and intend to use a payroll agency so all of the formal side of things should be taken care of.

Thanks for reading! All advice will be gratefully received.

I would assume you'd leave the car filled with petrol, and put say £50 a week in a kitty and tell the nanny to leave receipts in there.

I am new to having a nanny though. Ours is only in her second week, doesn't drive and doesn't seem to want to take the babies anywhere which is fine with me.

£50 a week is a HUGE kitty for one 9 month old baby!

The kitty should cover any expenses the nanny may occur during the week.So you need to work out how much she will spend. Will she need to do shopping/errands/pay the cleaner? Where will she take the baby? How much do those places cost? etc.

The car you can just make sure it's full I would imagine (or ask her to fill up and leave money to cover this). If she'll be using public transport an oyster card or similar would be good.

It's really a case of trial and error, maybe start with £20 and see how much gets spent.

Nanny should put any receipts or a note of where they've been and how much it cost either in the kitty or in the nanny diary.

We have a little box where my nanny puts reciepts and I keep a nanny oyster card in there too.
£20 will be more than enough initially. I tend to pay for things like gymboree and swimming ahead of time.

I keep ours at around £20 and ask nanny to let me know if she needs more. I also don't bother with receipts etc because I don't have the will or inclination to actually check (I did ask her to make a note of costs at first but don't bother). I just keep an eye on it every now and then.

Nanny uses her own car so will contribute towards that but not much as local journeys.

Trial and error at first - some days nanny may spend nothing. Other days may spend £3, other days £5. It depends on the things they do and how much those things cost.

As a nanny I prefer a fixed weekly budget, then I can spend less some weeks and more other weeks buy saving up what isn't spent on the lower cost weeks. However I care for more children, including school age so school holidays tend to cost more than term time.

Start off by logging all expenditure, that will give you both an idea of what is a reasonable weekly budget.

You may want nanny to log mileage done in the car you are providing. It helps as a record of places they visit and helps you have an idea of what costs are involved (do you know rough cost per mile the car you are supplying does?).

Thanks all. That's really helpful.

We'll do all the shopping for food and pay in advance for classes etc. The cleaner is paid via direct debit but i'd leave an emergency fund for the window cleaner etc. I have no idea how much our car costs to run but it's a diesel estate so not too much really.

Based on your advice I'd probably leave £20 a week to start with and see how we get on.